Netanyahu to Abbas: If settlements didn’t exist, would you recognize a Jewish state?

[shira]

(PM Netanyahu with Italian President Sergio Mattarella)

The Palestinians must exorcise the "demon" of wanting to destroy the Jewish state Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told visiting Italian President Sergio Mattarella when the two met in Jerusalem on Wednesday morning.

“I (have) turned not only to Hamas, but to President Abbas, and I said, 'Would you recognize a Jewish state, assuming we solve the settlement problem?'” Netanyahu said. “And they won't, because the real settlement issues are the settlements of Tel Aviv, Jaffa, Haifa, Akko,” Netanyahu said. He understood he added, that Mattarella had met with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas just the day before. He assured Mattarella, that like his predecessors, he would support the creation of a demilitarized Palestinian state that recognized that Israel was a Jewish state.

The conflict, he said, “was and is about the Jewish state, and unless and until our Palestinian neighbors face this, confront these demons, give up the ghost of trying to destroy the Jewish state by this or that means, peace will be harder to achieve.” He explained that he saw the Palestinian drive to pass resolutions at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as part of its refusal to accept Israel as a Jewish state. “Denying our history is one of the means of denying the Jewish state,” Netanyahu said of UNESCO’s Jerusalem resolutions that refer to the Temple Mount solely by its Muslim names of Al Haram Al Sharif.

Netanyahu said that fortunately perceptions had shifted in several countries in the Arab world who no longer viewed Israel as an enemy, but as their ally, even a vital ally in fighting against Islamic terrorism.” This could serve as the basis for peace with the Palestinians, Netanyahu said.

http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-to-Abbas-If-settlements-didnt-exist-would-you-recognize-a-Jewish-state-471493

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Conundrum

If Abbas were to recognize Israel as a legitimate Jewish state (and face likely assassination from his own people among others), what's to prevent Netanyahu from declaring that the settlements as of that date to be "part of the Jewish State" and Abbas has surrendered that land as a Palestinian homeland?

[FBaggins]

5. "Assuming we solve the settlement problem" precludes that imagined danger

Your parenthetical comment "and face likely assassination from his own people" makes Netanyahu's point for him.

At this point, a withdrawal from the West Bank would very likely result in the same outcome as the withdrawal from Gaza did.

[Tony_FLADEM]

2. In 1988 the Palestinians voted to recognize the State Of Israel

Now it's true they did not recognize it as the Jewish state but the U.S. has not done this either. The U.S. recognized the state of Israel in 1948 but intentionally left out the Jewish part.

[oberliner]

4. Take note of this document

[Little Tich]

12. It would seem as if the US explicitly did not recognize a Jewish state,

as the word "Jewish" is crossed over.

According to the document: "The United States recognizes the provisional government as the de facto authority of the new State of Israel."

[FBaggins]

13. Only if you ignore the first sentence

Or did he just miss that one?

[shira]

6. The very fact they won't recognize a Jewish state, won't give up on millions of refugees....

....flooding Israel, and are opposing the Balfour Plan for the entire next year goes to show they don't recognize Israel's right to exist at all.

And that's the conflict. I know it's tough not blaming Israel 110% for everything.

[Tony_FLADEM]

7. Perhaps they just find it a little unfair that one group of people have refugee status

going all the way back to 70AD where the facts are in dispute and much more difficult to prove and the other group has to give up it's refugee status from 1948. The Balfour Plan entailed the rights of the Arab inhabitants being respected and preserved which really didn't happen since most of the them were expelled and their towns destroyed and property seized.

[shira]

8. Yeah, it's unfair Jews are indigenous to Israel - isn't it? As for Palestinian refugees....

....remember that all of Palestine including what's now Jordan was meant to be the Jewish homeland. Yes, Jordan was also Palestine until the Brits decided no Jewish home there. Palestinian refugees could return to any part of land outside Israel including the W.Bank & Gaza (and Jordan) and still be in their homeland.

Jews only get maybe 20% of the original Palestine offered to them, but too many people are busy trying to deny their indigenous rights.

======================

The point remains. PA/Hamas leaders won't recognize a Jewish state or state of Israel that should exist in peace. Why are you trying to deflect & pivot from that fact?

[Tony_FLADEM]

9. From the time Jews began going to 'Palestine' in the last 19th century until about the late 1920's

they lived peacefully with the Arabs who were living there. So the issue wasn't about Jews living there. The conflict started when the Palestinian Arabs started losing their rights and the land they were living on was sold or given away without their consent with no chance for them to ever attain possession of it ever again.

How far back do you go to determine indigenous rights? With respect to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict we have to go back over 3,000 years. Do you do this anywhere else in the world to determine property rights? And how do you determine if someone is Jewish for this purpose? Suppose you give an Arab living in the middle east a genealogy test and it's determined scientifically that the person is partly Jewish do they now have indigenous land rights or is it someone who believes in the Jewish religion but came from a thousand miles away and is unlikely to share any genetic traits with some Jews who lived in the Middle East 3,000 years ago?

I already showed you that the Palestinians recognized the state of israel in 1988. Netanyahu wanting the Palestinians to recognize Israel as a Jewish state is just a delaying tactic until he figures out how to keep putting Israeli's in Palestinian territory but without having to take eventual responsibility for them (one state solution) which isn't possible but he'll keep delaying until more people figure that out.

[FBaggins]

14. Nope. That's what remained after 1946 when Jordan was founded

The original mandatory Palestine included both Palestine and Transjordan.

[shira]

16. Start at 1920, the Palestine of that time period designed to be the Jewish homeland....

This was Palestine back in 1920, a homeland for the Jews, until Britain gave nearly 80% of it to King Hussein of Jordan.

[shira]

20. Same map as the one at BBC. Is BBC also idiotic?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/03/v3_israel_palestinians/maps/html/british_control.stm

There are plenty of websites which speak about the Palestine Mandate and the partition that created Jordan or Trans-Jordan. The fact is that Jordan was originally part of the Jewish homeland until this partition.

http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_transjordan.php

How did the Arab territory of Transjordan come into being?

The 1922 White Paper (also called the Churchill White Paper) was the first official manifesto interpreting the Balfour Declaration. It was issued on June 3, 1922, after investigation of the 1921 disturbances. Although the White Paper stated that the Balfour Declaration could not be amended and that the Jews were in Palestine by right, it partitioned the area of the Mandate by excluding the area east of the Jordan River from Jewish settlement. That land, 76% of the original Palestine Mandate land, was renamed Transjordan and was given to the Emir Abdullah by the British.

The White Paper included the statement that the British Government:

... does not want Palestine to become "as Jewish as England is English", rather should become "a center in which Jewish people as a whole may take, on grounds of religion and race, an interest and a pride."

After the partition, Transjordan remained part of the Palestine Mandate and its legal system applied to all residents, both East and West of the Jordan River, who all carried Palestine Mandate passports. Palestine Mandate currency was the legal tender in Transjordan as well as the area West of the river. This was the consistent situation until 1946, 24 years later, when Britain completed the action by unilaterally granting Transjordan its independence. Thus the British subverted the purpose of the Palestine Mandate, partitioned Palestine and created an independent Palestine-Arab state with no regard for the rights and needs of the Jewish population. According to Sir Alec Kirkbride, the British representative in the area, Transjordan was:

... intended to serve as a reserve of land for use in the resettlement of Arabs once the National Home for the Jews in Palestine, which (Britain was) pledged to support, became an accomplished fact. There was no intention at that stage of forming the territory east of the River Jordan into an independent Arab state.

In 1925, the British added 60,000 sq. km. of desert to eastern Transjordan forming an "arm" of land to connect Transjordan with Iraq and to cut Syria off from the Arabian Peninsula. The British continued to favor exclusive Arab development east of the Jordan River by enacting restrictive regulations against the Jews, even when Arab leaders sought Jewish involvement in the development of Transjordan.

[shira]

25. The fact is Balfour's Jewish homeland was Palestine, which included Jordan...

Last edited Fri Nov 4, 2016, 09:17 AM - Edit history (2)

...until the partition creating TransJordan. Until that point in time, the Jewish homeland included modern day Jordan.

From your favorite source...

The Trans-Jordan Memorandum annulled the articles regarding the Jewish National Home in the territory east of the Jordan...

...Following the 1922 Transjordan memorandum, the area east of the Jordan river became exempt from the Mandate provisions concerning the Jewish National Home.[2][3]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Mandate_for_Palestine_(legal_instrument)

And then there's Sir Henry McMahon's letter in 1937...

"I feel it my duty to state, and I do so definitely and emphatically, that it was not intended by me in giving this pledge to King Hussein to include Palestine in the area in which Arab independence was promised. I also had every reason to believe at the time that the fact that Palestine was not included in my pledge was well understood by King Hussein."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMahon%E2%80%93Hussein_Correspondence

Palestine was not to be given to King Hussein of Jordan. Imagine that. And yet, it was.

Feeling duped yet by fraudulent clown revisionists & propagandists like Illan Pappe?

[shira]

34. Notice the map you used includes land to the east of the Jordan River?

Last edited Sat Nov 5, 2016, 09:01 AM - Edit history (1)

Oops?

What country today is to the east of the Jordan River?

[shira]

36. The Palestine Mandate legally entitles Jews to a homeland in Palestine....

Last edited Sat Nov 5, 2016, 03:52 PM - Edit history (1)

It's Article 25 below which gave the Brits permission to sever Jordan from Palestine.

http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/palmanda.asp#art25

ART. 25.

In the territories lying between the Jordan and the eastern boundary of Palestine as ultimately determined, the Mandatory shall be entitled, with the consent of the Council of the League of Nations, to postpone or withhold application of such provisions of this mandate as he may consider inapplicable to the existing local conditions, and to make such provision for the administration of the territories as he may consider suitable to those conditions, provided that no action shall be taken which is inconsistent with the provisions of Articles 15, 16 and 18.

Again, territory between the Jordan River and the Eastern boundary of Palestine.

What do your crackpot revisionist sources have to say about that?

[shira]

38. You falsely claimed Trans-Jordan was never a part of Palestine, remember?

The Palestine Mandate proves it was and Article 25 gave the Brits permission to sever it from Palestine.

Game. Set. Match.

Sir Henry McMahon's 1937 letter also shows Trans-Jordan was part of Palestine & was never intended to be anything but a Jewish homeland. Balfour's input WRT Palestine extending about 10km west of the Jordan River is irrelevant to actual legal precedent (Palestine Mandate).

I guess I'll have to keep reminding you of these facts each time you bring up this crackpot revisionism of yours. I'm curious as to what it is you think you've proven. IOW, how do you think I'm wrong? Be very clear and specific.

[shira]

42. Now I'm curious, Tich. What was Palestine's boundaries during the Mandate period?

Can you tell me? Because you damned sure know it's not modern-day Israel in addition to Gaza & the W.Bank.

So?

Can you be honest & tell the class?

[shira]

17. You wouldn't support a Jewish state if settlements didn't exist....

So who are you trying to fool here?

You're part of the problem. Same as the Palestinians who have rejected their own state free of settlements 3 times in the past 16 years due to the fact they refuse to live in peace alongside a Jewish state.

Have those 3 rejections of their own state been worth it? Thousands of lives lost since 2000. Seems it's been worth it to you, proving once again this isn't about settlements or occupation to you at all, it's about being against Israel's very existence.

[shira]

21. Arab Israelis already have equal rights guaranteed by law, so be honest - okay?

And apparently you approve of Arafat and Abbas' decisions the past 16 years to reject their own homeland free of occupation and settlements. Which led to thousands of deaths.

Making you the one here who is pro-occupation and settlements. And certainly not pro-peace, being for the bloodbath that has ensued ever since, though you claim to be all about human rights & against war.

How am I wrong? This conflict should have been over 16 years ago. No war, no occupation, no settlements, Palestinians have their own state. Game over, end of story.

[shira]

24. Palestinians have rejected 3 deals in the past 16 years. Land swaps solve settlements...

The fact is that you prefer the past 16 years of war, terror, and bloodshed over the Palestinians accepting their own state on or near 100% of 1967 land with half of Jerusalem & an end to occupation forever.

So much for your BS human rights advocacy when you support the most fanatical, pro-terror hardline Palestinian positions.

And please, we've been over this Adalah propaganda many times before. Are you trying to pull a fast one here for the low-level info. lurkers? Nearly all the examples on their list are absurd & non-discriminatory, and you know that as well as anyone.

[shira]

35. Please, be honest. You oppose the UN Partition Plan of 1947....

Last edited Sat Nov 5, 2016, 09:03 AM - Edit history (1)

You don't believe that UN plan was "enough" and somehow the Palestinians refused it, despite your BS about them not being able to refuse something in accordance with UN resolutions.

Enough of the BS, okay?

These disingenuous pretzel-twisting acrobatics are too easy to expose at this point.

[still_one]

26. To play devil's advocate, if the Abbas said yes they would recognize Isreal, would the settlements

be dismantled?

[shira]

27. The Palestinians have rejected 3 peace deals since 2000 in which settlements would be dismantled....

....along with land swaps. Then again, all settlements could fall under Palestinian jurisdiction with residents becoming full Palestinian citizens in a genuine peace deal.

So settlements could easily be worked out with a willing partner on the Palestinian side.

[still_one]

28. I am presenting a hypothetical shira. What would Netanyahu do if Abbas agreed to that?

referring to rejected peace deals in the past is not the point I was making. Also, things change, a previous view may not be the same view today.

I also do not think it would be that easy to dismantle those settlements. Rabin's assassination if nothing else, demonstrated an extreme faction within Israel would resist it.

Please understand, I am a strong supporter of Israel, but also believe in a two state solution. However, I am not deluded to know that there are extreme elements on both side of the equation that will do everything in their power to sabotage any peace negotiations. The assassination of Rabin and Sadat demonstrated that

[shira]

29. I think the pressure would be too much on Netanyahu. Remember 1999 when Barak won....

Barak beat Netanyahu when the Israeli public thought it was the right time to go for the peace deal.

If Abbas does a Sadat and recognizes a Jewish state, Netanyahu would be dragged along for the ride or else voted out in favor of someone willing to cut a deal.

Problem is, Abbas cannot do that even if he wanted or else he'd end up dead just like Sadat.

[still_one]

30. You make some good points. Public pressure probably would be a factor if they thought a viable

peace deal was at hand.

[shira]

39. See Clinton Parameters, Olmert's offer, Geneva Initiative.

Your question is disingenuous, however, because you oppose the 1947 Partition Plan as well.

[shira]

41. Olmert's offer had land swaps & here they are...

http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Details-of-Olmerts-peace-offer-to-Palestinians-exposed-314261

What kind of game do you think you're playing here?

You're against any Jewish state in any borders, given you reject the '47 Partition Plan as well. This isn't about the Palestinians getting prime real-estate, as though if only Israel offered better lands in exchange for settlement land....

The '47 Partition Plan lands is far better, yet you reject it.

[shira]

44. Yeah, Abbas wrote it down. Read the article. n/t

[shira]

46. Yeah, the map Abbas wrote down....

Olmert wisely didn't let Abbas take a map b/c Abbas would've just used it as a basis for new negotiations later.